


Rare, Strange and Wonderful

by amidsummernightsfanfiction



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alexandria Safe-Zone (Walking Dead), Angst, Character Death, Daryl and Paul are both 17 at the start of the apocalypse, Daryl and Paul are young, Internalised Homophobia, Kissing, M/M, Making them about 19/20 during the present time events of this story, Maybe more... - Freeform, Mutual Pining, Rating Might Change, Violence, Work In Progress, Young people in the Apocalypse doing stupid shit, backstories, not going to follow canon too closely
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:48:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23477254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amidsummernightsfanfiction/pseuds/amidsummernightsfanfiction
Summary: Daryl and Paul where teenagers when the dead came back to life.
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Jesus
Comments: 7
Kudos: 41





	1. Meeting

The car Paul was currently residing on was surrounded by dozens of rotting corpses and they were all very keen to meet him. He had always known that he was worthy of the mass’s admiration of his body, but he thought this sort of admiration was a bit too strong. He continued to hack at their heads with a machete he handled swiftly and accurately. The adrenaline was starting to make him feel good. His blood was pumping, his swing was strong, he was starting to forget that he was certainly going to die, and he just got one right between the eyes, _fucking aws-_

“Oh, mother fucker!”

One of the godforsaken bastards had made their way up on to the bed of the truck. He had no choice, he had to make a break for it, or he was going to be a snack, and not the good kind. He turned his back on the mindless monster moving quickly towards him from the lower position of the truck bed and scanned the bodies surrounding the cab of the truck, trying to find a gap big enough to dart through. As if the things gnashing their teeth at him would let him go through with a few bruises, but no worse for wear, like the football team used to.

A gap had formed at the bonnet of the truck, where they had shifted towards the back when space was made as more made it up into the bed. He didn’t bother to look behind him, as he knew that there where bony hands reaching for him inches away, he could practically feel one about to rap it’s hand around his ankle, and started moving towards the gap, using the windshield to help build up momentum, and then leaping from the bonnet towards a gap that may have well been an eye of a needle, given the chances of him actually making it through were zero. The rank, putrid smell of hot, rotten flesh became unbearably intimate with his airways and he felt stiff, sticky clothes and stiffer, sticker flesh brushes the backs of his hands, the sides of his face, pushing up against his skin through his clothes and then he was though.

He landed with knees bent, as the gym teacher taught him, but quickly straightened up again. As he took off to chase freedom until they relented and let him have a few more choices other than death, his face suddenly became uncomfortably close with the ground. Cursing, he tried to get up, but one of the crafty bastards definitely had a grip on his ankle. He twisted his body so that he had his butt beneath him and got a quick glance of the situation. One of the things had got knocked down and trapped beneath the car and the feet of the others. One hand was free, and it was an opportunist, striking out as soon as it saw its chance and latching on to the desperate boy. Luckily, his head was trapped beneath and behind the other dead’s feet so it couldn’t bite him. But now the others were turning or starting to move towards him.

He started hacking at the things arm with the machete and tugging at his leg. Suddenly a body thumped down at his side. He didn’t look, panic was rising up in his chest, throat, infecting his brain. He continued desperately and in vain, to get free, the panic building pressure in his chest and clouding his thoughts until he was as brainless as the dead, who where still thumping down around him.

Finally, his hacking paid off and the arm was severed. He leaped to his feet and sprinted away. Ahead of him was a cross bow, held aloft by someone aiming it in his direction. 

Daryl had just been driving through, on his way home with his motorbike, when a disturbance in the road delayed his plans. He was understandably annoyed, but as Daryl watched the idiot on top of the car wobble precariously on the tight rope of life, he began to take pity on him. When the kid leaped though the crowd of zombies, he swung himself off his motor bike, grumbling to himself, and got close enough to aim and fire with accuracy. The zombies went down satisfyingly. One second they were a waking nightmare, and the next they were an everyday corpse, not bothering a soul.

Eventually the boy managed to free himself and began running in Daryl’s direction. After a slight double take upon seeing Daryl, he continued on. Daryl considered putting a bolt in him, in case he turned out to be trouble. He looked like trouble somehow, running towards him like that, his chin length hair in his eyes, his face grim and determined. But then he thought it best to gain his trust and find out if he had a community – guy certainly couldn’t have survived this long on his own -, make sure there really where no threats around these parts, as Aaron assured him. Daryl stopped shooting the walkers when the boy was close enough that they could get away before they reached them. There was no point in wasting arrows. He could take the long way home, with a slight detour to deal with his new friend.

The boy reached him, breathing quickly, eyes wide, looking like a frightened deer, but with all the strength of one to.

“Thanks,” he gasped out.

“Get on the bike,” Daryl replied.

Paul, quickly recovering from his near-death experience – they were a daily, practically hourly events these days – and tickled, in a hysterical sort of way, by the abruptness of the reply, answered, “I’m not allowed to take rides with strangers.”

The guy – who Paul realised was around the same age as him – looked at him with eyes that clearly read _, what the fuck is wrong with this idiot_ , and moved quickly and gracefully to get on the bike himself. _Right_ , thought Paul, _there is still a horde of dead behind us._

The guy made no indication that he noticed Paul's presence when he got on behind him, not even as he hastily wrapped his arms around his midsection when the bike roared to life. They started to move forward, and the dead got closer, closer, then he couldn’t see them because he refused to turn his head to look as they made a U turn in the street and finally sped away at high speed.


	2. Daryl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daryl's backstory part one. Next update will be the start of Paul's backstory. No posting schedule as of yet. I have a plan for the story and will write the chapters as I go along. Please comment or/and leave kudos.

On the morning that changed the world forever, Daryl was up before dawn to check his traps in the woods. By the time he’d checked most of them he had an assortment of rabbits and squirrel swinging from his belt. However, the last few appeared not to have caught anything. When Daryl looked closer, he saw blood splattered on the leaves and on the traps, as well as evidence of a lot of movement around the traps. In some cases, the rope was frayed or snapped. 

Daryl silently sieved that someone dare to steal his game, resolving to move his traps to a new area of the woods later that day and to check them earlier from then on. It was likely that old Herbert, thought Daryl. Herbert was a hobo that had moved into an abandon cabin in the woods. Daryl often spoke to him when he spent the day in the woods and gave him one of his kills if he caught enough. Daryl felt disappointment at the thought that his friend would steal from him but brushed it off as anger that he had been stolen from. He didn’t have time to move the traps right then because he didn’t have time to get to the gas station before Will came home from whether he’d spent the night. 

Luckily, Daryl knew that Janet was working at the gas station today and she served Daryl even though she knew he was underage. She also knew it wasn’t for him. From Mondays to Fridays, Janet worked at the gas station. On the weekend Jason worked there, the stuck-up prick from Daryl’s high school, who only worked their because his parents felt he needed character. He wouldn’t serve Daryl, and not because he thought he was going to drink it or that he might get in trouble. He wouldn’t serve Daryl because he knew it would get Daryl in trouble. 

Daryl hid the rabbits and squirrels beneath a bush before he broke through the treeline that stood opposite the gas station and motel that truckers, hookers and Will often frequented. He quickly crossed the road as the sun rose and entered the gas station. He grabbed Will’s favourite brand of beer, a few packs of chips and went to the counter, prepared to ask for his Will’s usual pack of smokes. But the words died on his tongue when he looked up to see Jason where he expected Janet’s wrinkled and kind face.

The teen sneered, and said in a snotty tone, “Janet’s not here, came down with some sickness. You will have to feed your dirty habits elsewhere, Dixon.”

Frustration at the situation burned in Daryl’s throat. There was no reason for this kid not to serve him, the whole town knew that Janet served him and who he came to the gas station every day for. The manger even knew that Janet served him, because Jason had tried to get her fired once, in the guise of the honest, law abiding young kid mask that he pretended he was around adults. Everyone knew that Daryl wasn’t buying for himself, which was a good enough reason in a small town not to need ID. 

Daryl knew there was no use arguing, and he certainly didn’t want to give Jason the satisfaction. He just gave Jason a long stare as the prick snickered behind his protective glass, letting him remember that Daryl owned a crossbow, until the cocky smirk he wore became strained. 

Daryl kept his composure until he reached the woods again, where he cursed and kicked some twigs about. He found his game and headed though the woods, in the direction of the trailer park, walking slowly and trying to appreciate the warmth of the early morning sun that took the edge of the chill that remained from the previous night. He had no reason to get home quickly now. Will would be just as angry if Daryl wasn’t there when he made it home as he would be if Daryl was already there, but wasn’t holding beer, food, and cigarettes in his arms. 

About half-way home, Daryl’s keen ears heard the sound of stumbling footsteps in the woods, like he was being tailed by a drunkard. He looks in the direction the sound is coming from and in the distance, he can see a figure swaying and stumbling towards him through the trees. He recognises Herbert’s bushy beard and starts towards him immediately. 

“Hey, did you think you could just take my game, man?” He called out to him. “I know you knew it was mine!”

He got no response from the lurching figure and so Daryl marched further forward, frustration and anger at the terrible start to his day, that was certainly only going to get worse, causing him to want to lash out at an easy target. As Herbert and he got closer, Daryl began to feel uneasy, and as he studied the man, he’s unease only grew. It felt like a snake was withering around in his gut, and his whole body could feel the effects. Suddenly he realised what was wrong. It was the way Herbert was moving. Daryl had never seen anything living move like that before. It wasn’t quite the uncoordinated stumbling of an intoxicated man, which he was familiar with. It wasn’t a reaction of exhaustion or pain of a man badly injured in a fight, which was also a familiar sight on Daryl’s side of town. The movements where jerky and sudden, making them unnatural. 

“You gonna answer me or not?” Daryl asked doubtfully, the anger gone now and weariness left in it’s place. 

He came to a slow halt, his senses on full alert, noticing that there was blood in Herbert’s beard and clothes. The man’s skin was sallow, and his eyes looked cloudy. Herbert was still making his slow but sure way towards him, only ten feet away from Daryl. Daryl moved so that he was the same length away, but on the man’s left side rather then directly in front of him. As if Daryl was the north pole to Herbert’s compass, he instantly changed course, moving in a way that did not make sense to Daryl, who spent hours tracking animals through the woods. He knew what animals’ movements meant; which direction they would move in by the angle of their head, or if they where going to run by the tension in their bodies. He had come to apply this knowledge to humans, watching the way they moved like he did the animals he tracked in the woods, and often knew where they were going to move before they knew themselves or what their intentions where by how they moved. 

Herbert’s movements were expressionless.

Daryl noticed that behind the blood in Herbert’s beard, there was a wound of some sort. His every instinct screaming to go, Daryl relented, deciding that he would let the game go this time. He swiftly turned his back on Herbert and took off through the woods in the direction of home, looking behind him every so often to check that Herbert wasn’t chasing after him. He had continued to follow Daryl, but stayed his original speed, so Daryl quickly lost him.

He broke through the treeline into his back garden, instantly noticing Will’s figure though the net curtains of the trailer. He went silently into the trailer, the incident with Herbert at the back of his mind now that he had to face Will without his usual peace offerings. It didn’t matter how quite Daryl was though, Will always knew he was there. When Daryl was younger, he would often think Will hadn’t noticed when he had made a mistake, as he never gave any indication that he saw Daryl. But Daryl was always wrong, Will just liked waiting for Daryl to forget his mistake before punishing him for it. Daryl soon wised up.

Will did not pretend to notice Daryl this time. As soon as Daryl entered the kitchen, where Will had taken out what little food they had and stuffed it all into a backpack, he grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged him forwards. 

“Where the fuck have ya been, son. The damn apocalypse and your wondering around in the goddamn woods. Well, at least ya got us some grub. Why is there no food in this goddamn kitchen!? Grab your bow and pack some clothes, we’re going.”

After the incident in the woods, in a strange way Daryl would have preferred it if Will had sucker punched him as soon as he walked through the door. It would have been, at the least, a reassurance that everything was the same as it always had been, and not that something was seriously wrong as his instincts have been telling him since he first saw Herbert in the woods. 

Daryl automatically went to his room to grab his bow and clothes, as he always did whatever Will told him to do without any questions. He emptied his backpack of his meagre school supplies and packed the few items of clothing he owned into it. Daryl secured his hunting knife in its sheaf beneath his shirt. He realised that he still had dead animals tied around him. He shouldered his backpack and bow, untying the string as he quickly left his room. He still wasn’t sure that Will wouldn’t turn on him suddenly and didn’t want to give him cause to. Later he will remember that, despite that being the last time he ever set foot in the room he’d lived in for years, he didn’t even glance around to check that there was anything else he needed. At the time he didn’t know that he would never return, but he never had any regrets about it. He never missed anything from that place, apart from the people in it.

Will had left the kitchen and was now loading stuff into the back of their truck. Daryl came over and silently began loading his bow and bag in the back corner of the truck bed.  
When Daryl was done, he worked up the courage to ask, “Where’re we goin?” 

“We’re gonna go up to your uncle Billy’s cabin. Don’t want to be trapped here by the military like pigs for slaughter.” Will spoke in a matter of fact tone of voice, like what he had said made perfect sense.

“Why, what’s goin on?”

“What do you mean, boy, haven’t you seen the news?”

Daryl hadn’t. The electricity had been cut off a week ago.

“No, I was out emptying the traps.”

“There’s an infection, causing people to go crazy, attacking people for no reason. It happened to me before I got here, but I beat them off with a pool cue and came straight here.”  
Will must have slept in the bar all night, which he did when he couldn’t find a woman to take him home. He must have watched the news there this morning, or sometime during the evening before. Daryl wondered who had attacked him. 

Suddenly, Will turned to Daryl and gave him a stern look. “Hey,” he said, ”where’s my smokes?”

Fuck. There was no point in lying. Will could always tell when he lied. 

“That Jason kid wouldn’t serve me.”

Will’s hands clenched in to fist and he clucked his tongue at Daryl. “Why do you let that kid tell you what you can and can’t have, boy? You’re a Dixon, act like one!” 

Daryl flinched when Will grabbed his soldier this time, his grip holding him in place rather then bringing him closer. Will's sleeve had hiked up a bit with the movement and Daryl could see a bloody bandage wrapped around his bicep. Noticing Daryl notice it, Will let his son go just as suddenly as he had grabbed him. 

“Get in the truck,” He grunted, tugging his sleeve back down. “We’re going.”

Daryl thought that Will's behaviour was strange. But the really worrying thing was that Will hadn’t mentioned the beer. It must be serious if Will thought he needed to be sober.

**Author's Note:**

> First attempt at fan fiction. Let me know what you think.


End file.
